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Saludos! Happy Friday and welcome to Comprende, edition 066.

In an industry built on handshakes and word-of-mouth, Puerto Rican founder Gabe Marrero saw how mistrust and inefficiency kept Latino contractors in the shadows. Determined to change that, he created Yosubi, a platform that connects property managers with licensed workers while giving contractors the legitimacy and opportunities they’ve long deserved.

Today we’re telling the story of how this Puerto Rican entrepreneur is transforming the construction industry, turning everyday communication into a digital infrastructure of trust, growth, and visibility for Latinos nationwide.

So, depending on where you are in the world, grab your cafecito or cervecita and dive in. If you enjoy today’s edition, please forward it to your gente or share it online. Let’s keep growing this comunidad together. ☕️

comprende 066: Beyond the Handshake: How Puerto Rican Founder Gabe Marrero Is Creating Growth for Latinos in Construction

From Birmingham, Alabama, Gabe Marrero is orchestrating a construction revolution that stretches from Texas boardrooms to Puerto Rican accelerators, all powered by a tool that’s second nature in Latino households: WhatsApp. His startup, Yosubi, isn’t just another construction tech platform. It’s a carefully engineered response to an industry paralyzed by mistrust, inefficiency, and a growing labor shortage.

The statistics are staggering. Each year, the U.S. construction industry faces a shortfall of 500,000 to one million workers. At the same time, a massive pool of skilled Latino contractors remains underutilized, trapped in informal job networks that rarely provide stability or growth.

Gabe saw this disconnect and realized the solution wasn’t simply matching supply with demand. It was rebuilding trust in a sector where, as he puts it, “todo es word of mouth, todo es un handshake” [everything is word of mouth, everything is a handshake].

“La gente en general, parte de un punto de distrust,” Gabe explains. “Cuando parte de mala fe, hay mala fe en todos lados” [People in general start from a point of distrust. When you begin in bad faith, there is bad faith everywhere]. This entrenched skepticism has kept construction stuck in analog habits, even as other industries have digitized.

That recognition shaped Yosubi’s core design. After completing Puerto Rico’s Parallel 18 accelerator, where he secured funding and contacts despite long delays from government programs, Gabe made a critical pivot. Instead of tackling the entire construction ecosystem, Yosubi zeroed in on property and facilities managers seeking contractors for maintenance, repairs, and renovations under $50,000.

This wasn’t just segmentation; it was precision. These smaller projects provide a proving ground for contractors to build reputations while giving property managers a reliable way to address everything from routine fixes to urgent renovations.

What makes Yosubi unique is how it embraces the real communication habits of Latino contractors. While competitors push clunky apps or email-based systems, Yosubi integrates directly with WhatsApp. Project notifications arrive on a contractor’s phone in their preferred language, and automatic translation ensures smooth communication with English-speaking clients.

“Muchos no sacan mail… todo es a través de WhatsApp, sencillo, intuitivo” [Many don’t check email… everything is done through WhatsApp, simple, intuitive], Gabe says. These seemingly small design choices become decisive in determining whether underserved communities actually adopt new technology.

The platform goes further by embedding trust into every step. Only contractors with proper licenses and insurance are accepted, creating a professional environment where workers can showcase skills without the vulnerabilities of informal arrangements. Through WhatsApp, they can schedule site visits, sign DocuSign contracts, and even receive payments via Zelle or Venmo. What once required endless phone calls and paperwork can now be managed with the ease of sending a message.

Yosubi also introduces incentives to grow its ecosystem. Contractors who refer other reliable professionals earn royalties on that person’s projects for two years. Property managers can do the same. This peer-check system both expands the network and reinforces accountability, users have skin in the game to ensure quality.

The business model is straightforward: a 6% project fee with a minimum charge of $299 for small jobs, plus subscription options for larger clients seeking discounted rates. Yosubi is positioning itself at the crossroads of a $103.5 billion property maintenance industry and a Latino workforce ready to step out of the shadows.

For Gabe, though, numbers and features tell only part of the story. At its core, Yosubi is about dignity. It’s about giving contractors, many of whom have built America’s homes, schools, and offices for decades, the legitimacy and economic opportunity they deserve.

“Estamos creando ese ambiente donde tú puedes entender que somos parte de tu comunidad” [We are creating an environment where you can understand that we [Latinos] are part of your community], he says.

As he prepares for investor meetings in Austin, New York, Florida, and beyond, Gabe isn’t just pitching a tech platform. He’s offering a reimagining of how trust, technology, and cultural understanding can converge to solve one of America’s most pressing workforce challenges.

And his advice to other entrepreneurs? Don’t wait for certainty. “Everybody is making it up as they go,” he says. “Even the biggest founders, even the VCs. They all had to take a leap of faith somewhere. The lesson is simple: just do it.”

With Yosubi, that leap is reshaping an industry, and creating space for Latino contractors to finally be seen not as invisible laborers, but as indispensable builders of the future.

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